


brick by boring brick

by glendowers



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Sad Ian, lip and mickey being best friends i don't know why, literally sorry 4 this, post 5x12
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2017-12-19
Packaged: 2019-02-17 03:59:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13068648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glendowers/pseuds/glendowers
Summary: mickey left. ian's here.





	brick by boring brick

Ian’s on his back.

The ground pushes against him, incessant and cold, dirty hands urging him to _get up get up_. He doesn’t get up. He breathes, in out in out, closes his eyes and does it again. In out. In out. He wonders what Dr. Eink would say, what he would do if he found Ian right now. He thinks Dr. Eink might laugh a little, say some psychological bullshit just to make Ian grind his teeth or something like _Small victories, I suppose. At least you’re doing that breathing we talked about._

You see, Ian’s not supposed to fight. He’s not supposed to bloody his fists or bruise his knuckles; _fighting is an unhealthy method of coping that just won’t do, Mr. Gallagher._ But, here he is, on his back and questioning why he thought picking a fight with a firefighter was a good idea.

 _You were angry again_ , he remembers. Everything shifts into place.

Caleb. That’s the guy’s name, he thinks. He was nice enough to be a challenge, because in Ian’s eighteen years he’s found that even the nicest people can be broken if you apply the right amount of pressure. And apply that pressure he did.

“We through, Gallagher?” Caleb asks, hovering over Ian with his mouth twisted into a scowl.

Ian says, “You’ve given me all I want, so yeah. You’re free to go save lives, or some shit.”

Caleb just scoffs a little, kicking his feet as he leaves and causing dust to find a happy home in the back of Ian’s throat. Ian thinks he might hear something like _Fucking Gallaghers. All pieces of shit_ as the other man recedes, but he can’t exactly place any residual anger in him. He’s decently sated after today's therapeutic release of anger, and Dr. Eink can drop straight to hell for all he cares.

_I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m okay._

☠

It takes six months of complete vacancy for them to tear down the Milkovich house.

Ian breaks someone’s nose.

☠

“Heeey, Mick. It’s Ian. Ian Gallagher. You remember me? Of course you do, I was the fuckhead that ruined your life. ‘M not sure if this is your real number anymore. I don’t know anything ‘bout you anymore. Why you left. Where you went. ‘M not doin’ so good, Mick. You- you been gone for a year, and- and I’m here and I can’t - can’t stop being... I don’t know. Angry. At myself. For.... for a lot of shit I’ve done. I fucked someone who looked a little like you today- except their eyes were- were brown. Yeah. They were brown. I lied. He didn’t look like you. No one’s... no one’s you. I can’t seem to forget that. Come back. Or- or shoot me in the fucking head. I don’t care. Mick-”

Ian throws up.

☠

The first Milkovich Ian sees is Mandy.

He’s in the grocery store, a basket in the crook of his elbow and a list in one hand. He was recruited by Debbie to buy supplies for Lip’s birthday party, even though Lip had been incessant that he _didn’t need a birthday party, fuck_ over the phone the previous week. Debbie didn’t care and neither did Ian, because Ian wanted to see his older brother and he also wanted cake. Two birds one stone and all that shit.

When he sees her, he’s pretty sure it isn’t her. His stilted head stutters, trips over its feet as he tries to form some sort of reason for Mandy to be here, after all this time. But it is her, there’s no mistaking that Milkovich black hair, Ian knows that better than anyone, he thinks.

“Mandy.” he says, just to make it real.

He watches her shoulders tense, watches her grip on her grocery cart tighten until her knuckles are white. He watches as she turns, her mouth pressed. Her eyes are hard, he thinks she might be disgusted.

“Ian Gallagher.” she says it like an insult, like the word is bitter beneath her teeth and traitorous on her tongue. She says it like she hates him.

His mind stutters again. “How are you?”

Mandy smirks a bit, “Dad’s dead, so I’m great. We all are. Thanks for asking.”

 _She didn’t say Mickey. I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t say Mickey._ “I would give my condolences, except I’m not sorry and I hope his death was painful.” he says instead, forcefully casual in a way that feels _wrong_.

“Yeah, well, it was nice catching up but,” she shrugs noncommittally, turning away and receding before Ian can think to say _goodbye_ or _we used to be best friends, remember_ or _I’m sorry I broke your brother, do you think he’d agree to see me?_

Except he blinks and she’s there again, her face twisted and angry, and she’s rearing back her fist and clocking him right between the eyes. He sees stars, bright and bold beneath his eyelids, and he thinks they might be nice under other circumstances.

“Mandy- what the fuck?” he manages, his hand coated with slick red blood - _that’s mine._

She shakes out her hand, smiles at him for the first time in two years. “That’s for my brother you stupid fuck.”

And then she’s gone.

Ian thinks his nose is broken.

☠

“Look, man, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

Ian’s shaking. Buzzing. He hates himself all the way down to his toes and despises his brother even more. He hates this, he _hates_ this; this loss of control he hasn’t felt since the months after his diagnosis.

“You mean to tell me,” he says, low, “that you’ve been in contact with Mickey. The entire time.”

Lip bounces on his feet in apprehension, wrings out his hands. “Yeah, well. After you guys- you know- he came up to my dorm to drop off a bunch of your shit. I said he looked like he needed a drink. I told him to keep in touch and he did. He’s- he’s become one of my best friends, Ian. And what did you expect me to do, huh? It’s not my fault.”

“Tell me where the _fuck_ he’s been!” Ian shouts, pulling his hair at the roots until it stings. “Oh my god. Best friends, huh? Fuck you.”

He told himself he’d stop fighting. He breaks that promise.

☠

They reunite, of all places, at the Kash & Grab.

Ian’s so startled that he drops his coffee; a grand display of caffeinated fireworks that seep all the way through Ian’s new shoes. _Fiona is gonna be pissed._

Mickey cranes his head slowly, features slackened in a sort of bored interest, but the moment he catches sight of Ian his face changes completely. Ian would have to be blind to even argue it’s a happy change.

Ian says, “Hey, Mick.”

Mickey nods. Once. Tight. Bundles the things he has in his arms and - _wait, what?_ \- makes his way to the cash register. It’s all increasingly surreal - _Mickey’s_ paying _for things_ \- and Ian’s legs feel heavy and immobile.

_Do something. He’s leaving._

He does. Do something, that is. He loses any sort of fascination for coffee and follows Mickey outside, his heart bleeding something sad and sick all the way down to his toes. _Breathe_ \- in out. In out.

“Don’t.” he chokes, and it’s all so ironic that he could laugh, and he does. He tips his head back and lets it out until it’s mangled and verging on hysterical, and he shouldn’t feel so splintered but he does.

Mickey asks, “You fucking mental, Gallagher?”

Ian responds, “More than usual? Not sure.”

Ian waits for Mickey to apologize, waits for his face to twist into something regretful as he realizes he’s joked about something’s that’s No Man's Land much like everyone else in his life. Except- except he doesn’t. He just shrugs, loose and casual.

“I-” Ian stops, offers something that he thinks might look like a smile but feels painful and twisty. _Ian the doll that opens and shuts its eyes._ He wonders if it shows. “So you and my brother, huh?”

“You make it sound like he’s my fucking boyfriend,” Mickey says, gruff, but there’s _something_ there that Ian can’t place. “Your brother’s a shithead, and he won’t stop fucking calling me to bother me. _Boo-hoo_ my little brother beat the shit out of me. I tried to warn him.”

Ian hears his heartbeat in his ears. It sounds like the ocean, a little, or what he’s come to associate with oceans. The waves breaking and all that shit he’s seen on TV or in movies. He _knows_ \- he knows now, that thing hitching Mickey’s voice. He’s heard it before, he’s _earned that_ before.

It’s fondness.

“He deserved it.” Ian says now, indignant, “He knew where you were-”

“I told him not to tell you.” Mickey interrupts, casual like _man it’s cold as balls, huh?_ or _catch the Mets game, didja?_

Ian can’t breathe. “W-why?”

“Having you in my life only fucks me up, and I have a good thing going for me right now, alright?” Mickey looks at him, hard, “not that I owe you an explanation.”

“Mick-”

Mickey puts an arm out, fingers splayed against Ian’s shirt to stop him. He can feel the warmth of Mickey’s hand, and it makes him feel manic in a way that a fistfull of pills should prevent. “Ian, don’t. I’m here to put my old man in the ground. I didn’t come back for you.”

The ocean in his ears. The ocean in his mouth, in his eyes, pulling him under. He wants to drown. Mickey’s eyes are like the ocean, he thinks. But no- no Mickey’s eyes are the sky. They’re the day at the dugout, when Ian reddened his fists with Mickey’s blood.

“Would you have ever come back?” Ian asks.

“No.” he answers.

Mickey leaves. Ian lets him.

☠

_“He takes his pills........... Yeah, every day......... I know- I know it’s great, none of us expected him to........ How’d it go?......... why did you lie?”_

☠

Ian’s on his back.

The sky pushes down on his chest, incessant and cold, hands urging him _further_ and _down_ and _under_. He breathes, in out in out, closes his eyes and does it again. In out. In out.

He’s not supposed to be here- at the dugouts. Dr. Eink insists that it’s a _trigger_ ; something small enough to send Ian into a blind, gory rage or a comatose depression. It used to piss Ian off, the idea that he was seen as being so _weak_ that even negligible things like a _fucking baseball field_ would shatter him into pieces.

It made him mad until he knew that it was true.

“Tell me why.”

Ian opens his eyes and Mickey is here. He’s here in a physical sense- not just a manifestation of a memory pressing against Ian’s skull. “Because I love you.”

Mickey’s hands clench into fists at his sides. “You don’t even know the question.”

Ian shrugs, loose, “It’s probably the answer.”

Then Mickey is on his back next to Ian, not close enough to touch but close enough to feel his warmth. “What if I was asking why the sky’s blue?”

“In a poetic sort of way, it still fits.”

Mickey’s quiet. He says nothing, and just as Ian closes his eyes he hears it: “I want to know why you pushed me away.”

Eyes open. “I already answered.”

A sigh. “That’s not good enough.”

“I did it because I thought you deserved better than someone who kidnaps your son. Who fucks around on you behind your back. Disappears for days.” eyes closed. “Someone who isn’t held together by a fucking handful of pills. Someone _normal_.”

“It’s my life, Gallagher. I would have chosen any version of you.”

Closer. “I want you to come back.”

“I can’t do that.”

Closer. “Then I want to kiss you.”

Mickey tilts his head, the ancestor to a smile on his lips. “I’d let you.”

Ian does. It’s a thousand things he’s remembered and million he forgot. It’s two scared boys with a history like a gash. It’s a goodbye.

“I love you, you stupid ginger _fuck_.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

Mickey leaves and doesn’t come back. Ian tries to make himself okay with it.

**Author's Note:**

> this shit is so sad. im so sorry u had to read this. xo :-P


End file.
